Developer Q&A this Friday

This Friday, September 5th, Community Manager Lore will sit down with two of Blizzard's lead WoW devs to answer your questions! Send them in with #WarlordsQA

Blizzard

This Friday, September 5, at 10:00 a.m. PDT, Community Manager Josh “Lore” Allen sits down with Lead Game Designer Cory Stockton and Lead Narrative Designer Dave Kosak for a special Q&A where they’ll answer your questions live on Twitch.TV. They’ll be discussing topics such as the world design of Draenor, the new exciting activities you’ll be able to take part in, and a ton of information on the highly anticipated new Garrisons feature.

The event will take place this Friday, September 5 at 10:00 a.m. PDT on our Twitch.TV channel. If you’ve got a question you’d like to see answered, send us a tweet using the hashtag #WarlordsQA. We’ll see you there!

Harvest Festival Update

The Harvest Festival is live today, and while the version on Live servers remains unchanged, four new items have been added as quest rewards to the Beta version, which means we'll likely see them next year.

Blizzard on Currency Changes and Realm Firsts

With the holiday weekend, the Blues haven't been hugely active on Twitter, but Lead Game Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas shared some interesting information about Tier Tokens in Warlords of Draenor, and Heirloom Vendors with the removal of Justice Points, and Realm Firsts for Challenge Modes:

Upgrades for Lesser Charms in 6.0

Community Manager Lore has also posted the following on the official forums. While we knew about Test of Valor's removal, and covered it yesterday, the news about Lesser Charms being used for upgrades is interesting:

As a couple posters have mentioned, we're planning to remove the Test of Valor step from the Legendary chain.

Regarding item upgrades, those are being converted to use Lesser Charms of Good Fortune as currency instead of Justice or Valor.

wait the gear i upgraded is reverting back to 0/4 status?

No, gear that's already been upgraded will keep its current upgrade status. The only change is that, if you want to upgrade another item, you'll spend Lesser Charms instead of Valor.

1. How many Lesser Charms will each upgrade cost? I am hoping that it isn't 1000 Lesser Charms to upgrade an item 4/4 like it is 1000 VP.2. Is there any cap on how many times you can upgrade items with Lesser Charms in a week? I.E, if I have a toon with 17,000 charms, can I just upgrade a massive amount of items as soon as 6.0 goes live?

1. It's currently set to 50 Lesser Charms per upgrade, but that number isn't set in stone.2. There are no additional caps being added for upgrades. Keep in mind that you can only upgrade each item a limited number of times.

What's going to happen to the valor vendors?

I'm going to miss having that as a fallback to get upgrades.

Nearly everything that previously was purchased with Valor (or Justice) will now be purchased with gold instead. The only exception I'm aware of is Item Upgrades.

Blizzard Gear Store End of Summer Sale

The Blizzard Gear Store - home of all the Blizzard merchandise line - has a sale running until September 8th. It's 30% off select items, and we've noticed a few new items appearing in the store, such as BlizzCon 2010's exclusive pink Murloc plush - Gurky - and a Whimsyshire shirt, along with several other new items! Check it out!

Reputation Preview: Frostwolf Orcs

Next up in our series of Warlords of Draenor reputation previews is the Frostwolf Orcs. This Horde-only faction is the clan of Durotan and Draka.

Players will need to have a rating of 2500 to qualify, and be able to provide proof of residence in the EU. The tournament is being run by DreamHack, with players competing online for positions in a top eight live final.

We're starting off our Warlords of Draenor reputation previews with a quick look at the Steamwheedle Preservation Society. Reputations in Warlords of Draenor are quite different than those in Mists of Pandaria--no traditional dailies or epic gear tied to grinds! Gaze of the Black Prince is also returning for one more time before Warlords, so we've included our mini-guide in the post.

The Steamwheedle Preservation Society is locked in a rivalry with Harrison Jones and traditional archaeologists. They seek to "liberate relics from the ogres of Nagrand with the noble intention of selling them to the highest bidder."

Rewards

HonoredPlayers can purchase the Goblin Hot Potato: Attempt to throw the Goblin Hot Potato to a friendly player. If they have free room in their pack they will catch it... assuming you manage to throw it safely!

This guide covers everything you need to know about Garrison Outposts in Warlords of Draenor--how to unlock them, their zone-wide perks, and any associated quests and followers!

Garrison Outposts do not work like your Garrison hub--you cannot construct and level up additional buildings there. What you do get are special zone-wide perks and questchains that reward followers and currency to buy higher-level Garrison blueprints.

In four zones, you have the option to choose between two unique outpost themes, and you can have all four outposts active at once across zones. There are eight potential outpost themes and the Alliance and Horde have different artwork. We've taken pictures of all sixteen options!

You can later switch an outpost in a zone, at level 100, for . Just talk to the person who originally gave you the outpost choice in each zone.

For our complete set of Garrison resources and guides; from basics to buildings, followers to missions, and much more, check out our Garrison Hub!